Yoder addresses council about parking garage solar panels

November 16, 2010

By

Becky Polaski

Bob Yoder addressed council members on Monday evening about the planned solar panels on the soon-to-be-constructed parking garage. Photo by Becky Polaski.

Bob Yoder once again addressed council members on behalf of Dynamic Energy, Inc., asking for council members to indicate whether they intend to move forward on a power purchase agreement for the downtown parking garage project, as well as working to solve any other potential issues that they foresee regarding the project.
Yoder explained that an initial design concept had recently been completed for placing the panels on the garage.
"It does show a vacant spot because we are trying to figure out how to get them on to where we can get the maximum amount of slope and also the maximum amount of power out of them," Yoder said.
Yoder also noted that when he last addressed council in October he had indicated that applications still needed to be made for funding for the project.
"The funding is in place. I signed the loan commitment letters about a week and a half ago. Hopefully we can close sometime in December. This is part of a bundle that has six other solar projects throughout Pennsylvania," Yoder said.
According to Yoder, he was recently informed that if the city plans to move forward with the solar panel project, the planned transformer for the parking garage will need to be upgraded.
"The cost of the upgraded transformer is $11,000, which is included in my cost, and also we're going to do some upgrading in some of the wiring inside the parking garage itself. I don't want to go out and spend money to upgrade the transformer and then [have] nothing happen because it's going to cost me $25,000 to $30,000 to do the upgrades. That comes out of our pocket, it doesn't cost the city anything," Yoder said.
Yoder expressed the hope that representatives of the city and Dynamic Energy, Inc. could meet within the next few weeks to begin working out the details.
For more on this story, see the Nov. 16 edition of The Daily Press.